11 replies to this topic

[thouse]

To my knowledge, the PA has attempted to use Non-Conventional Forces to fight conventional battles and the result has always been disastrous.  Three examples come to mind.  Furst, the use of tribal lashkars in Kashmir in 1947 and the subsequent battle for Srinagar.  Second, the use of mujahideen in the battle for Jalalabad against Afghan communist forces in 1989.  Third, the use of the NLI w/o air support in the Kargil battles.

Battle for Srinagar Airfield 1948
In this battle, advance elements of the ist battalion of a Sikh regiment were able to hold off the dis-organized tribal lashkar.  This allowed the IA to airlift forces into Srinangar and occupy the entire valley.  This was the first example where the PA sent in irregulars, whereas a few company of regulars may have changed the fate of Kashmir.

Battle of Jalalabad 1989
In August 1989, the Mujahideen guided and directed by Pakistani intelligence agencies attempted to take control of the city of Jalalabad from the demorolized Afghan army.  The Soviets had already withdrawn and the mujahideen expected to walk into Jalalabad.  Instead the Afghan army inflicted 10,000 casualties on the Mujahideen and managed to hold on to the city.  This, despite the fact that Jalalabad is logistically the closest city to the Mujahideen's supply bases in Pakistan.
Jalalabad

Battle for Kargil
Once again, the NLI was stripped of all heavy equipment, denied auir support and sent into battle without a follow on plan.  Although initial surprise was achieved, the IA managed to isolate and eliminate the unsupported defenders through the use of air power.

In all of the above battles I see one common thread.  The General Staff has achieved tactical surprise, but dwindled that advantage by not having a follow on plan.  This is where the Israelis differ.  They do not setle for a scuffle.  If they start a war, they go full on until the enemy is destroyed.  If they are not able to achive that goal then they do not start the war.  It appears PA's strategy is to achieve limited tactical surprise and then try and bleed the IA dry.  Yet it does not have the resources or the political support for a battle of attrition with the IA.

[umiqum]

I king of agree with your notion. But wouldn't you say that in 1948, Pakistani army was too thin with not much teeth comapiring to the British Indian Army. So Lashkar was probably a big help at that time.

But I agree that 89 and specially Kargil was a big mismanagement on our part.

[thouse]

In 1948, Pakistan should have disguised regular units as "tribals" and assigned them the task of securing and holding key objectives.  Since the tribals had managed to reach Srinagar airport, it is safe to say any regular units of the PA that would have been assigned to the lashkar could have also reached Srinagar at teh same time.  Initially the airport was held by one or two companies of Sikh and was reinforced under fire by the IA.  Imagine if those two companies would have faced a battalion of regular PA supported by commandos and light artillery.  The failure to take the airport resulted in the loss of the valley.

In Jalalabad, the mujahideen had quality and quantity on their side, yet they could not push the advantage.  The fact is that NCF are incapable of dislodging entrenched regular troops, regardless of the amount of firepower provided to them.  They should only be relied on to cause disruption in the enemies rear.  It takes years of training to keep men in formation under fire.  A good soldier needs discipline and intelligence.  A good fighter is not necessarily a good soldier.  The afghans are classic examples of this.  Great individual fighters, but as an army they suck.  Compare this to the vietnamese.  Nothing much when it comes to individual combat, but they put together one of the best infantry units of the 20th century.

[must7]

In 1948 .. don't you think that Pakistani COAS was a British and our leaders had problem asking him to mobilize a regiment !

Also don't you think that had Pakistan mobilized the army than the British COAS would have informed his counterpart in India and the element of surprise might have been missed ! We did get up to Muzzaffarabad !

[thouse]

In 1948 .. don't you think that Pakistani COAS was a British and our leaders had problem asking him to mobilize a regiment !

Also don't you think that had Pakistan mobilized the army than the British COAS would have informed his counterpart in India and the element of surprise might have been missed ! We did get up to Muzzaffarabad !

Thats a great point.  I forgot to take into account that a mobilization of any unit at or above the battalion level would certainly have come under the scrutiny of the COAS.  But what really gets me is that we failed to take the airport because of 2 companies of the IA.  I guess that the tribal way of fighting is hit and run and an attack on a prepared position is not something that they are good at.

[sobank]

Battle for Srinagar Airfield 1948
In this battle, advance elements of the ist battalion of a Sikh regiment were able to hold off the dis-organized tribal lashkar. This allowed the IA to airlift forces into Srinangar and occupy the entire valley. This was the first example where the PA sent in irregulars, whereas a few company of regulars may have changed the fate of Kashmir.

not true there were other factors involved in it. first of all PA didnt go all the way with lashkaries. and when the time was to attack srinagar air port, they just sat there waiting.

Lashkaries didnt fail exactly. it was them recapturing the area not pa.

Battle of Jalalabad 1989
In August 1989, the Mujahideen guided and directed by Pakistani intelligence agencies attempted to take control of the city of Jalalabad from the demorolized Afghan army. The Soviets had already withdrawn and the mujahideen expected to walk into Jalalabad. Instead the Afghan army inflicted 10,000 casualties on the Mujahideen and managed to hold on to the city. This, despite the fact that Jalalabad is logistically the closest city to the Mujahideen's supply bases in Pakistan.

one set back and you are willing to right off their victory against russians. but tell me which military power could  take them out in afghanistan? americans sitting half way around the world???????

Its war. you win. u lose. but you have to count the final result not little little parts of the pictures. Do you know once salahudin lost practically all of his army and came back to Egypt with practically one horse that he was riding on and alone with no guard. and he used practically same tactics in his whole life. Now will you call his night attacks by his commandos a failure?

So the non conventional forces are not the problem. You just pinned the failure of one sector on another.

Now as far as kargil goes. No paf support was decided to keep the conflict limited. though i dont understand really that when everybody knows that PA is there supporting them.

and this time there was some some political problems too. now we also heard that nawaz held army back. so we would never know that they were gonna have the back up plan.

finally.

It appears PA's strategy is to achieve limited tactical surprise and then try and bleed the IA dry. Yet it does not have the resources or the political support for a battle of attrition with the IA.

Unfortunately those who made it worked died. Zia and his generals made it work in siachin perfectly after not trying to stop indians at their initial position. Please note that pakistan just sat on lower positions and never tried to attack further. and this worked very well too. until our present general gave it away.

[thouse]

one set back and you are willing to right off their victory against russians. but tell me which military power could take them out in afghanistan? americans sitting half way around the world???????

Its war. you win. u lose. but you have to count the final result not little little parts of the pictures. Do you know once salahudin lost practically all of his army and came back to Egypt with practically one horse that he was riding on and alone with no guard. and he used practically same tactics in his whole life. Now will you call his night attacks by his commandos a failure?

So the non conventional forces are not the problem. You just pinned the failure of one sector on another.

Sobank:

I am not argiung that NCFs are useless.  Rather, my point is that NCFs should not be relied on to win conventional battles.  NCFs are great for hit and run tactics.  These tactics were used to good effect in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviets.  Jalalabad is a lesson that sustained operations requiring forces to take and hold ground cannot be accomplished with NCF.

I am nit well versed in the history of the battle for Srinagar

not true there were other factors involved in it. first of all PA didnt go all the way with lashkaries. and when the time was to attack srinagar air port, they just sat there waiting.

Lashkaries didnt fail exactly. it was them recapturing the area not pa

Are you saying that the Lashkaries were waiting for orders from the PA to attack the airport, but that PA never gave authorization?

[Saad]

To my knowledge, the PA has attempted to use Non-Conventional Forces to fight conventional battles and the result has always been disastrous.  Three examples come to mind.  Furst, the use of tribal lashkars in Kashmir in 1947 and the subsequent battle for Srinagar.  Second, the use of mujahideen in the battle for Jalalabad against Afghan communist forces in 1989.  Third, the use of the NLI w/o air support in the Kargil battles.

Battle for Srinagar Airfield 1948
In this battle, advance elements of the ist battalion of a Sikh regiment were able to hold off the dis-organized tribal lashkar.  This allowed the IA to airlift forces into Srinangar and occupy the entire valley.  This was the first example where the PA sent in irregulars, whereas a few company of regulars may have changed the fate of Kashmir.

Battle of Jalalabad 1989
In August 1989, the Mujahideen guided and directed by Pakistani intelligence agencies attempted to take control of the city of Jalalabad from the demorolized Afghan army.  The Soviets had already withdrawn and the mujahideen expected to walk into Jalalabad.  Instead the Afghan army inflicted 10,000 casualties on the Mujahideen and managed to hold on to the city.  This, despite the fact that Jalalabad is logistically the closest city to the Mujahideen's supply bases in Pakistan.
Jalalabad

Battle for Kargil
Once again, the NLI was stripped of all heavy equipment, denied auir support and sent into battle without a follow on plan.  Although initial surprise was achieved, the IA managed to isolate and eliminate the unsupported defenders through the use of air power.

In all of the above battles I see one common thread.  The General Staff has achieved tactical surprise, but dwindled that advantage by not having a follow on plan.  This is where the Israelis differ.  They do not setle for a scuffle.  If they start a war, they go full on until the enemy is destroyed.  If they are not able to achive that goal then they do not start the war.  It appears PA's strategy is to achieve limited tactical surprise and then try and bleed the IA dry.  Yet it does not have the resources or the political support for a battle of attrition with the IA.

See in all these battles we simply either could not afford to lacked the resources to send regular forces.

In Kasmir 1948 we lacked the resources, in Jalabad, PA could not have sent regular forces and in Kargil we were denying the presence of our regular forces in an offensive operation.

Though I completely agree with your theory of weak or non existant follow up plans.

Saad

[faizan khaliq]

In 1948, Pakistan should have disguised regular units as "tribals" and assigned them the task of securing and holding key objectives.  Since the tribals had managed to reach Srinagar airport, it is safe to say any regular units of the PA that would have been assigned to the lashkar could have also reached Srinagar at teh same time.  Initially the airport was held by one or two companies of Sikh and was reinforced under fire by the IA.  Imagine if those two companies would have faced a battalion of regular PA supported by commandos and light artillery.  The failure to take the airport resulted in the loss of the valley.

In Jalalabad, the mujahideen had quality and quantity on their side, yet they could not push the advantage.  The fact is that NCF are incapable of dislodging entrenched regular troops, regardless of the amount of firepower provided to them.  They should only be relied on to cause disruption in the enemies rear.  It takes years of training to keep men in formation under fire.  A good soldier needs discipline and intelligence.  A good fighter is not necessarily a good soldier.  The afghans are classic examples of this.  Great individual fighters, but as an army they suck.  Compare this to the vietnamese.  Nothing much when it comes to individual combat, but they put together one of the best infantry units of the 20th century.

The Lashkar had no logistics of their own so they had to rely on looting etc.This process took time otherwise had the lashkar reached in time then it would have been difficult to dislodge.Genaral Gracy was the one who informed the Supreme commander of Indian forces who happened to be his boss as well about the Lashkar on the march.Not even this much but he plainly refused Qaid-i-Azam once asked to send troops to Kashmir
and threatoned to withdraw British officers from Pakistan Army.Thirdly The lashkar could have succeeded had they took over the airport ,their tactics were not flawed they had almost encircled sri nagar but open airport gave Indian army to gain numerical superiority on the other side Pakistan has to send officers on leave to join the lashkars and government was not oweing those fundamentalists.

[platinum786]

i think we don't have the full picture of what happened at kargil, maybe in 10-20 years time we might, but not today.

[aziqbal]

I am all for non-conventional means, we made the nukes for a reason so I think we should defintaly use them sometime in the future. We have nukes so it means they are for use in war and if need be I dont think we should think twice we should be able to throw them at anyone anywhere in the world for sure and if anyone objects nuke them too.  

[aziqbal]

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